Tag Archives: Entrepreneurship

Lindsay’s In Business: part 11: It’s alive!

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by Lindsay Uittenbogaard

What happens when you realise your path is entrepreneurship rather than employment? Lindsay takes up the challenge and shares an account of her journey as it unfolds…(you can find previous parts of Lindsay’s story here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.)

The Mirror Mirror concept had started out in July out as 3 slides before growing into a bigger slide pack, and then into an actual Descriptive Pack, the one we circulated to our Alpha expert test group for comment some time ago (much like a new born being passed around to some doctors for examination). It had survived their tests.

To recap from the last blog: Mirror Mirror is a structured way of capturing how people in teams perceive the internal and external context in which their team operates, including how each team member’s values and preferences tend to shape their perceptions and the way they respond. The combined data is reflected to the team in one whole picture, providing powerful insights that lead to improved engagement, teamwork and business unit performance.

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Lindsay’s In Business, Part 10. A Commercial Proposal

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by Lindsay Uittenbogaard

What happens when you realise your path is entrepreneurship rather than employment? Lindsay takes up the challenge and shares an account of her journey as it unfolds…(you can find previous parts of Lindsay’s story here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9).

Taking stock: we now have a business idea with expert business partner support. Here’s the idea (after several iterations) …

‘Mirror Mirror’ is a structured way of capturing how people in teams perceive the internal and external context in which their team operates, including how each team member’s values and preferences tend to shape their perceptions and the way they respond. The combined data is reflected to the team in one whole picture, providing powerful insights that lead to improved engagement, teamwork and business unit performance. Continue reading →

Lindsay’s In Business: Mirror Mirror

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Femflection is excited to run its first interview with blogger and businesswoman, Lindsay Uittenbogaard.  Lindsay has been writing the story of her transition from employment to entrepreneur with Mirror Mirror in Femflection for several weeks.  Now, we get to hear more about where she’s got to, how her business concept is taking shape, and how she is handling these developments.

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So, you’ve been blogging in Femflection about setting up your own business.  Tell us, where are you with that right now?

It took several weeks to land the idea I’m working on right now.  It felt like quite an unusual position to be in actually – to know that you want to run a business but not have an idea in mind.

Once I’d investigated various concepts – from an art promotion business, to a one-stop home maintenance service – I have landed on something that is fundamentally about communications for the corporate market, which is my area of expertise. It also covers HR, learning, leadership and business improvement.

So here we are… it’s called Mirror Mirror – it’s a structured team situation assessment tool that helps team leaders with engagement, teamwork and performance.  It’s also a perfect team leader onboarding tool.  We’ve finished the design and are currently testing and refining it. Continue reading →

Lindsay’s In Business, Part 9. Awaiting responses

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by Lindsay Uittenbogaard (you can find previous parts of Lindsay’s story here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8)

So, Miss X and I had decided to circulate the blueprint I had written up to 10 – 15 experts in the field as our “Alpha Testers”. They were each asked to review the document and respond with their thoughts on these aspects:

  • if they thought it made sense,
  • if they had heard of anything like this before,
  • and if they could suggest considerations or improvements.

From Hong Kong to Pakistan, England to Australia, that pack – with an NDA precursor – went out to the most accomplished and well-respected OE, HR, Comms, Learning and Leadership experts I had ever met. Continue reading →

Lindsay’s In Business, Part 8. Unjumbling

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by Lindsay Uittenbogaard (you can find previous parts of Lindsay’s story here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7)

The confidence and clarity I had in my business idea had plummeted whilst on holiday in Scotland and I got back feeling just awful.

RIGHT. This mess needed sorting out.  I wanted to get back to the basic concept and start afresh. I’m sitting at desk.  The house is empty. OK.

  • The emphasis had always centred on creating a better understanding of ‘context’ so that Managers can better engage with their teams.
  • It was about capturing perspectives to get that understanding – listening to what the sponsor, team leader and team members find as important and why, what they think could be done differently, how positive and motivated they feel about things – and most importantly – WHY.
  • It was about better understanding the style of the team leader, and the values of the team members.
  • It was about real dialogue: teams and their leaders talking together, co-creating a shared understanding of the issues, possibilities, ideas and means – where they are aligned and where they could be more aligned and why
  • Then it was about achieving real outcomes – what the team could do differently to move forward together, be that in learning, communication, collaboration, relationships, changes to processes etc.

I was waking up in the mornings, visualising the way this ‘offering’ would work.  A brand name popped up. Continue reading →

Lindsay’s In Business, Part 6. Shaping, Goodwill And The Network

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by Lindsay Uittenbogaard (you can find previous parts of Lindsay’s story here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

I’d have to start earning again in about 4 months and was desperate to get something moving. I’d put my CV out with some interim agencies – just in case (all my own work fell apart – I had to simply ignore that possibility) but I just couldn’t envisage getting enthusiastic about ANOTHER project with the same old challenges, the same old inefficiencies, and the same old difficult leaders. This had to work.  Plus now I’m even blogging about it (is that wise?) so it HAS to be a success story! Continue reading →

My Foremothers, The Role Models

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by Helga Kristin Fridjonsdottir

When I was growing up in Iceland, I was surrounded by powerful women. My mother came from the “West fjords” in northwest Iceland where life was harsh, nature was brutal and women often had to lead the fight for their families survival.

My grandmother on my father’s side came from the relatively isolated Snaefellsnes peninsula. In most coastal areas in Iceland, the main livelihood at the beginning of the 20th century came from fishing the treacherous North Atlantic. My great-grandfather, Adalsteinn, had bought his own fishing boat to provide for his family: my great grandmother Helga, for whom I am named, and my grandmother Kristin for whom I also named. Adalsteinn’s ship tragically went down on the coast, visible to the village where he had been born and in front of his wife and two-year-old daughter. Continue reading →

Lindsay’s In Business: The Big Professor

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by Lindsay Uittenbogaard

OK –  so now just two business concepts await examination under the microscope. Having started with seven concepts a few weeks back, one by one they had fallen down. Each time I had been grateful: who wants to spend months and thousands in pursuit of a business idea only to discover a fatal flaw later on.  Letting each idea go was tough – especially if it was a hot favourite.

This week, the hot favourite definitely wasn’t idea 1: a one-stop home repair and improvement service.  Interesting but not INNOVATIVE. It was idea 2: a solution to address that repeated Middle Manager engagement issue. Now there’s a market. Continue reading →

Lindsay’s In Business: Falling in love and whittling down

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by Lindsay Uittenbogaard

The high you can get off letting on your own ideas flow is like champagne… I fell completely in love with an art-based concept.  It seemed to take on a life of its own by the hour!

It started with a thought: wouldn’t it be interesting to see feelings (like anger or serenity) be represented in a painting. Surely a series of these by one artist would get attention. There was something there.

What about if set titles were created and artists were asked to paint to those? Each title could start with the phrase “How it feels when….” and end with a description of situations that everyone can identify with, like “… you come home to a clean and tidy house”. The titles could also be about global issues: “… you hear that 50 people have been murdered in a New Orleans nightclub”, for example.  What would the different interpretations look like? Continue reading →